Dragon Slayers Incorporated

Got Dragon?

You fly the airship towards the village of the Empty Eye Orcs of the western side of the Nentir vale. You stop for the night in a forested area by a creek. During the night you are attacked by a vine from the feywild and an oblivion moss. The moss steals memories and powers from you and creates duplicates of Baaki, Mercaiden, and Beandr.

After you defeat them, Grae eats some of the oblivion moss and learns sees through the memories of a dragonborn who was slain by the moss a volcano rising over Fallcrest and a huge elder red dragon ordering the Red Hand of Tiamat.

The next day you reach the village of the Empty Eye Orcs. Lagduff introduces you to Snagga, the current leader of the village. He challenges Baaki for the Spear of Urruk. Baaki defeats him in single combat.

The village agrees to join your army and take over Winterhaven. Baaki, Tanharath, and Fra’nika go with Snagga and Lagduff.

Messengers are sent to the orcs in the Dawnforge mountains to rally near Fallcrest in two weeks.

Grae, Beandr, and Mercaiden decide to take the airship to Kobold Hall where they will hide it and then they will travel to Fallcrest for reconnaisance.

You find the road leading to the mine and follow it along. You encounter two different wagon trains hauling marble blocks from the mine.

As you near the mine, Beandr flies up to see what is ahead. He spots four guard towers, including two at the front gate.

You decide to find a better vantage point to try to view the layout of the mining area at the top of the box canyon. You find a knoll guarded by a male and female human pair. They challenge Mercaiden with a spear and club and are soon dispatched by Mercaiden and Grae.

From the knoll you determine that the towers are manned with archers, all of whom are watching inside the mine, guarding the workers, not guarding from outside.

You confer and plan your attack for afer nightfall.

Once everyone is asleep, Baaki rapels down into the mine by the tents where the orcs are sleeping. Beandr ambushes the south tower while Grae takes out the north tower. Baaki uses the Spear of Urrok the Brave to rouse the orcs and rally them to attack the masters.

A battle ensues. Soon the remaining two towers are neutralized, the horses are freed, and the camp is looted. Mercaiden is hit but not wounded. Fra’nika takes a ballista bolt through the torso but is healed by the party.

You dine with lady Bleth and during the meal, lady Bleth offers you her father’s old air ship, a contraption that he built with Nimozaran back before she was born. She heatd that it had flown, but she never saw it airborne herself.

The next morning she takes you to a barn outside the village that contains a workshop, alchemical lab, and an air ship.

You study Bleth’s notes and learn how to fill the bladder that keeps the ship aloft. You also find the power source to fly the ship and the arcane controls that raise, lower, and move the ship back and forth.

After a test flight, you load your horses, provisions from lady Bleth, and yourselves, and begin your flight. You cross the Winter River on the first day. You see barges carrying cut stone down river towards Fallcrest. When you pass over farmland, you see workers with overseers bringing in the harvest.

The bladder springs a leak near the end of the first day. Beandr finds some tree sap to seal the leak.

On the second day you reach the Cairngorm Peaks a range of low mountains. Just as you are looking for a place to land for the night, you see four objects travelling through the air towards you!

Mercaiden and Grae ride back to the Grey Stone Inn and meet with Lady Bleth. She is shocked by the death of her father and is disappointed that you do not have the Dragon’s Bane stone for her.

Grae tells Lady Bleth that the rest of the party died in the battle, but that Black Petal was killed, along with all of her host. She asks if you destroyed Black Petal’s phylactery and reveals that Black Petal is an ancient ancestor to the Bleth family named Anefsina.

Fra’Nika is shocked to learn of the death of the party, but Grae let’s her know it is only a ruse.

Lady Bleth asks that Grae and Mercaiden accompany her back to Tingerwick to guard her and to collect their reward for retrieving her father. She is unwilling to travel alone. Grae buys her a horse to carry her father and suggests that she find her own way back.

Grae and Mercaiden return to the Blood Tower with Fra’Nika and the party spend the night.

Mercaiden examines the medallion from Black Petal and determines that it is a powerful holy symbol with a curse upon it. The curse compromises the user, turning them evil. Sometimes causing them to attack their allies. The medallion also demands that the user extract a secret from an ally or an enemy.

Grae examines the Dragon’s Bane and discovers that it is an ancient artifact, a relic of the axe of Erek Hus, the primordial who cut Io in half and created Tiamat and Bahamut. The artifact gives the wielder power against dragons, and the greater the bond the wielder has with the artifact, the more power it grants.

The next morning the party spends the better part of the day searching the tower for Black Petal’s phylactery but are unsuccessful in locating it. More treasure is found, and Mercaiden find a small child’s necklace in the form of a black flower. She dons it.

After much deliberation, the party decides to head to Tingerwick, accompanying Lady Bleth. Lady Bleth pays the party the reward for retrieving her father, and her treasurer, Gunthar, takes the party to the town market, which is on the other side of a crossing into the Shadowfell. There, the party are able to sell the cursed amulet and buy anything that they can afford.

When you awake you move into the next chamber of the mine and discover more slaughtered dwarves with their hands removed. These dwarves are soldiers wearing the crests and sigils of Forgehome. As before, all metal appears to be missing. This time the answer is clear. As you enter the room you discover a Rust Monster that is trying to climb up to a rocky shelf. You also notice more myconids who take a strong interest in you. You kill the Rust Monster and destroy the myconids.

The Rust Monster was trying to retrieve a dagger that had been thrown up on to the shelf by one of the dwarves.

Your explorations lead you into more recently carved tunnels and recently worked silver veins. Following a tunnel you come to a shaft that descends to a lower level of the mine. The elevator appears to be gone. You climb down the shaft and to your horror you discover a room full of dead dwarf miners whose hands have been removed. You also notice that all the metal equipment is gone. It is not long before you realize that the room is actually full of miconyds and clouds of spores. A long and difficult fight ensues, but you manage to destroy the myconids. It seems unlikely that the myconids had anything to do with the removal of the miners’ hands.

During the fight with the myconids you heard some noises and possibly shouting from the adjoining room, but there are no more sounds after the fight—only the noise of a waterfall. You take an extended rest to recouperate from all of your fights.

You take a short rest after fighting the duergar. You then bindg the feet and hands of the captured archer, giving his feet enough slack so that he can walk. He agrees to lead you towards Forgehome, but he will not take you all the way there as he will be killed by the dwarves.

As you progress down the ancient dwarven mining tunnels, you come upon an area that has been mined—probably for silver. While investigating the room, you are ambushed by a group of Troglodytes from Hraak Azul, the great fugal fortress. One is riding a rage drake.

During the fight, Breena gains the rage drake as her own mount by dismounting the troglodyte rider and climbing on top.

Amon knocks out the duergar to stop him from escaping during the fight.

You suffer heavy damage in the fight but seem to be holding your own. Unfortunately, you hear the sound of approaching troglodyte reinforcements. You realize that in your weakened condition, you are no match for fresh combatants, so you hastily flee the chamber.

Unfortunately, you had to leave the duergar behind—although it is questionable just how reliable a guide he actually was.

Using your great skills you evade the pursuit of the troglodytes, setting traps and distractions for them that enable you to move through the dwarven mining tunnels and gradually get closer to Forgehome.

Out over the lake you see something flying fast. As it nears you it turns and heads towards you, flying high. As it comes into range it begins circling above you, then slowly descends.

“Greetings,” it says as it flutters to the ground in front of Mercadian. “Nimozaran has sent me. I am Zincofax.”

“Nimozaran is wondering why you have not returned. He has another mission for you. He expected you back many days ago.”

After you relate the story, Zincofax suggests that you perform the sending ritual to inform him of the party status. A message comes back informing you that there is a portal in Forgehome,a Dwarven city. Unfortunately you will have to get past the great fortress of Hraak Azul, then travel to Forgehome and find the temple of Moradin. The priest maintains a portal there that will take you to Hammerfast in the Dawnforge mountains near Fallcrest.

You send Zincofax ahead to scout out a path. He finds a number of caves and tunnels. You choose one that appears to be an old mining tunnel. As you explore, suddenly an arrow flies out at you. Before long you are surrounded by Duergar slavers that are bent on enslaving you. Fortunately, you are able to defeat them and take their archer prisoner.

You find yourselves being sealed into the caves by the bandits. You weigh your options: Try to dig out the barracade that the bandits have made, find a secret door, create a portal, or find a portal.

You cautiously approach the pool in the caves and discover that it is an illusion. Stepping into it one at a time, you vanish, and reappear in a deep cavern above a whirlpool into which you fall.

The whirlpool takes you down an underground river to an underground lake. The only light in the cavern appears to be coming from a proliferation of mushrooms and fungus. You leave the lake and notice many miles off a glow that appears to be some sort of fortress. From your knowledge of history and dungeoneering, you suspect that it is the moving fortress of Hraak Azul. An enormous fungus that slowly crawls through the underdark. It is inhabited by troglodyes that hunt creatures for food. You feel that reaching there is your best hope of finding a way out.

Along the way you encounter a patch of large mushrooms that turn out to be predatory myconids bent on digesting you for lunch. You manage to best them, and then move on.

Working your way further into the bandits’ caves you meet a dragonborn named Hallabiri. She is a water elementalist who is seeking after rumours of a magical water in the region. Unsure if you can trust her or not, you do not reveal the location of the aquifer that you found in Brunfax’s lair.

Pressing deeper into the bandits’ caves, following the sound of arguing, you come upon the bandits in the middle of a quarrel with a burning face that rises from a small idol. The bandits appear to be arguing that they want out of some sort of bargain, and the burning face with long sharp teeth, who calls itself Gnaw-Gnaw-Burn-Burn, will not let them out of the deal that they have made with Bezenthal.

Meanwhile, you attack the bandits, attempting to slay their armor-plated fighter.

Gnaw-Gnaw-Burn-Burn conjurers a dragon and tells the bandits that they will die for their insubordination. The dragon attacks the bandits, and Grae attacks the dragon, starting a three way fight as the dragon takes on both your party and the bandits.

Gradually the bandits flee the caves, shutting you in and leaving you to fight the dragon on your own. Just when you think you are about the defeat the dragon, Gnaw-Gnaw-Burn-Burn returns and banishes the dragon. He claims to be the servant of Bezenthal and warns you that Bezenthal is no longer in your debt now that you have allowed the bandits to escape punishment and have nearly slayed his dragon.

At least your treasure is safe, and you find more among the supplies of the villagers of El Shalal—many of whom are conscious in holding pens in the back of the caves.

As you emerge from the caverns you see a pillar of smoke rising from where you think El Shalal resides. When you investigate you discover that El Shalal has been sacked, the women and children appear to be missing and many of the young men are dead.

You track what appears to be an army to some distant mountains and find the caves there to be guarded by humans. You make contact with them and determine that they are the ones who sacked El Shalal, taking prisoners for slaves and taking all of Agabar’s treasure—your payment!! It seems that there is a dispute between two tribes over the ownership of wells in the area.

You demand to see Agabar. They bring him out. He has been tortured and is missing a hand.

You try to bluff your way in to the caverns hoping to retrieve your treasure. They do not believe that anyone who has water would be willing to trade it. As negotiations fail, a fight breaks out.

You slay the guards and two wizards who seem to be directing them, then force your way into the caves where you are attacked by trained coyotes and two fire sword-weilding guards. These are not easily defeated and you take significant damage.

With stealth you enter the chamber of Brunfax—although he knows that you are coming because of the connection that you make with him through the wooden medallion.

The chamber is lit by torchlight. It is the largest chamber that you have encountered so far. The doors open onto a wide bridge over a dark pool of cold water. Many walls and columns block your view of the entire chamber. As you make your way into the chamber you are shot at by a small goblin. He distracts you from noticing the Orc Berserker that is hiding under the bridge who attacks you from behind. After dispatching these two you work your way further into the chamber, ignoring any other danger that might lurk under the bridge.

The dragon explodes out of the sand at you and attacks while simultaneously, four kobold dragonshields emerge from under the bridge trying to flank you. He seems particularly interested in tasting and eating Mercaiden and Grae as he has never tasted an elf or a tiefling before. A long battle ensues but finally you prevail against the dragon and his servants.

You enter what could very well be the antechamber to the dragon’s lair.

In the centre of the room is a small platform. On the platform stand two kobolds, one large, well armoured one, and one smaller, slick looking one.

In front of you are four smaller kobolds.

When you enter the room to fight the kobolds, you discover that the room is booby-trapped. Tiles drop from the ceiling on Breena and Imgodid. Imgodid steps into a pit trap of quicksand. Amon get caught in a sand vortex.

More and more kobolds fill the room, but you defeat them, taking down the mighty dragonkin champion with bold charges from Imgidid and Breena.

You search the room and find gold beneath a tile on the platform. Dr. Carrion shows some interest int he shock spear of the dragonkin champion.

The medallion indicates that the dragon could be in the next room. You are aware of his presence, but he is also aware of yours.

You enter a room with a tiled floor covered in runes. On the far side, the wall glows.

You determine that the runes are written in an ancient form of draconic. You can’t read them, but from your knowledge of draconic you determine that there is some reference to opening something, summoning something, and a vault key.

A careful examination of the tiles reveals that some of the tiles are more heavily used than the others, so you attempt to jump from one different tile to the next. When you fail to jump far enough you step on the non-different tiles and are immediately shocked by lightning and tossed across the room.

Mercaiden finally manages to make it all the way across the room, stepping only on the different tiles. When she lands on the final tile, four iron defenders (iron constructs in the form of dogs) appear as if summoned. They speak in unison demanding to know who has summoned them and then they ask for the word of opening.

When you realize that you do not know the word of opening, the dogs attack. After a vicious fight, you search the room and find two chests of gold.

Dr. Carrion uses his shock attack to disrupt the spell on the wall. After a search of the wall, a small drawer is revealed that contains an odd looking key.